Eighty-six-year-old Ruth Nordmeyer lives in an assisted-living
facility. But she was almost evicted after her son used $100,000 of her money
to finance his high-end Portland fitness club.

Sixty-year-old Linda Ober was disabled. So when aides at her
Portland nursing facility dropped her — fracturing both of her legs — and
lied to cover it up, she had to spend six days in excruciating pain until another
employee thought to send her to a hospital for x-rays. She died the
next day.

What happened to Nordmeyer and Ober was harrowing, but at least
their abusers were investigated and prosecuted. That may not happen in the
future, as the number of elderly Oregonians soars, the economy plummets and
the interagency, multidisciplinary teams that have investigated and prosecuted
cases like these struggle to keep up.

According to the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, the state’s
65-and-older population is expected to double between 2000 and 2008.

At the same time, says AARP Oregon director Jerry Cohen, "Because
of the economy, we’re going to see a big increase in families being desperate
to hire anyone as caregivers. And, with the type of (government agency) budget
cuts being discussed, there’s a grave concern that there will be fewer ‘watchers.’"

But it isn’t just the fox outside the henhouse that needs
watching.

"When families are under stress, they’re more prone
to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise," says Cohen. "I.e., ‘My
kid’s in college, I’ve just lost my job, and it’s not that
I intend to rip my parent off, but I can rationalize doing things I’d
otherwise never consider doing.’"

"When you combine the demographics with the economy," he
concludes, "it’s not a pretty picture."

How the System Works
While lawyers aren’t mandatory reporters of elder abuse under Oregon
law, they’re heavily involved in protecting older Oregonians in a number
of other ways.

Litigators increasingly are suing abusers in civil court, using
a combination of common-law negligence theories or, when applicable, a civil
statute (ORS 124.100 et seq.) that provides for an alluring range of
remedies but tightly restricts who can be sued.

Civil and criminal practitioners both took part in a statewide
conference on "Teamwork in Tight Times: Working Together to Intervene
in and Prosecute Financial Fraud" that was held in March.

And deputy district attorneys are an integral part of the multidisciplinary,
interagency teams that advocate on behalf of victims like Ober and Nordmeyer.

Such teams are built around Oregon’s elder-abuse reporting
statute (ORS 124.050 et seq.), which allows suspected abuse of persons
aged 65 or older to be reported to a law enforcement agency or to the state
Department of Human Services or its local adult protective services (APS) offices.

Allegations of abuse of adults with physical disabilities also
are reported to the same government offices.

In the past, police officers who received such reports — frustrated
by messy personal and financial relationships between alleged offenders and
their victims — sometimes told complainants that "this is a civil
matter" when the conduct was in fact criminal. And adult protective services
workers, unfamiliar with criminal statutes, sometimes failed to pass appropriate
complaints on to law enforcement instead of dealing with them administratively.

Now, "If we’re not sure if it’s criminal, or
if it’s in the grey zone, we have a monthly meeting with local law enforcement," says
Multnomah County’s Adult Protective Services Program Manager Mohammad
Bader, "which includes the DA’s office, the Portland Police Bureau
(PPB), the sheriff’s office, county counsel, the public guardian and
other law enforcement jurisdictions as appropriate."

Regardless of whether a complaint is investigated criminally,
Bader’s office provides social services to the reported victim. This
may include arranging for mental-health treatment, in-home care and/or medical
care; monitoring his or her well-being through repeated home visits and pursuing
a guardianship and/or conservatorship if he or she is incapacitated and in
danger.

"We still protect the victim’s interest," says
Bader, "stop the (figurative) bleeding and put the perpetrator on notice
that someone is watching."

"APS does an incredible job," says PPB Sgt. Margaret
Bahnson, who has been in charge of the bureau’s Vulnerable Adults and
Elder Crimes Unit since 2007.

While Adult Protective Services investigators have become more
knowledgeable in recent years about what constitutes criminal conduct, Bahnson
says that her unit also has become more crime-oriented.

"Previously we went out on calls with APS," says Bahnson. "It
was more social services than law enforcement. Now, with resources as short
as they are, we’re focusing on what we are expert in: criminal law."

Once Bahnson’s unit determines that an elder-abuse complaint
does in fact involve criminal conduct, it goes to Annamarie "Annie" Shoen
in the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.

"I do any case that comes into the DA’s office where
the victim is over 60 (lower than the elder-abuse reporting statute cutoff
age of 65) and was targeted as elderly," says Shoen, who prosecuted the
Ober and Nordmeyer cases, both of which resulted in convictions.

Shoen recommends that anyone who suspects elder abuse "call
the police — 911 if it’s going on right then — and APS."

"The police officer will take a report," she says. "It’s
generally referred to the DA’s office right away or, if in Portland,
it goes to [Bahnson’s] unit. I do get direct calls from citizens or other
attorneys who believe they have a case that could be criminal. But if they
call the police and APS and it’s a case, chances are it will end up on
my desk."

While complaints of abuse of persons aged 65 and older and adults
with physical disabilities stayed relatively flat statewide between 2006 and
2007 (see sidebar), the number of such cases that Bader’s office referred
to Shoen’s office for prosecution increased from 16 to 26. (2008 statistics
are not yet available.)

Bader says the underlying number of complaints investigated by
Multnomah County APS also "clearly shows a tremendous increase."

For example, between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006 (Bader’s
office uses the federal fiscal year for data collection), Multnomah County
APS investigated 685 complaints of financial exploitation. One year later,
that number had jumped to 967, a 41 percent increase.

"My guess is it (the increase) has to do with multiple factors," says
Bader.

Like the AARP’s Cohen, Bader believes one reason is the
economy.

"The elderly comprise 13 percent of the general population
but have 50 percent of the wealth," Bader says. "The bad economy
shifted crime from robbing a bank to robbing unsuspecting elderly or disabled
people who rely on family and caregivers. It’s also generated lots of
scams and too-good-to-be-true situations."

Bader says the elderly are especially vulnerable because "abusers
may assume that frail victims will not survive long enough to follow through
on legal interventions or will not make convincing witnesses." (Although,
as Oregon Department of Justice
Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Director Ellyn Sternfield wryly points out, homicide
cases routinely are prosecuted without
victim-witnesses.)

But Bader says the economy and the vulnerability of older persons
are not the only reasons the number of allegations investigated by his office
is increasing.

"There is more awareness about elder abuse due to community
outreach, education and more media coverage," he says.

For example, both the Ober and Nordmeyer cases received extensive
coverage in The Oregonian. And when a Multnomah County jury last year
returned a $904,200 award against a care facility that handcuffed an allegedly
disruptive dementia resident, The West Linn Tidings captioned its article
about the incident "A verdict that is putting care facilities on notice."

Medicaid Fraud Control Unit director Sternfield, whose program
also investigates and prosecutes cases of elder abuse that meet certain criteria,
says that it — like Bader’s — is receiving more referrals.

"We’re seeing more financial exploitation, which may
be partly due to the economy," says Sternfield. "But I don’t
know if there’s more abuse or more reporting of it. There used to be
a lot of shame in reporting it."

Emotional factors still may influence the amount of elder abuse
that gets reported. New police recruits at the statewide academy are taught
that elderly victims may be afraid to talk about what happened to them because
they fear being perceived as unable to care for themselves; that their perpetrators
may retaliate against them or conversely, that their perpetrators will get
in trouble.

The PPB’s Bahnson has no doubt that elder abuse continues
to be under-reported.

"In 2008, there were (only) 325 elder-abuse cases reported
citywide (in Portland)," says Bahnson, "and a lot of those cases
involved people who didn’t want anyone to be arrested, or someone else
reported the abuse and they didn’t remember it, etc. Certainly there
were more than 325 instances of elder abuse in Portland in 2008."

Financial Abuse Cases Up
When Shoen, Bader and Bahnson get together at Portland’s monthly interdisciplinary
elder-abuse meeting, the topic these days — as the AARP’s Cohen
predicted — is likely to be financial abuse.

"Most of my cases are financial abuse," says Shoen,
who prosecuted Ruth Nordmeyer’s son, Raymond "Tank" Nordmeyer,
for his theft of her money to run his fitness club. "That’s my impression;
it may be because they take a lot of time to investigate and prosecute. These
(cases) are just so devastating. To take away someone’s life savings
is so tragic: hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Bahnson says the PPB gets so many allegations of elder financial
exploitation that the bureau has limited its investigations to felonies "with
some hint of a suspect."

"We don’t investigate if it was a general scam, i.e., ‘Send
money to some anonymous person in Florida,’" says Bahnson. "But
we have done things like a couple of guys in a neighborhood targeting elders
for yard work, taking their money and not doing the work."

Multnomah County APS’ Bader says the 41 percent increase
in financial exploitation investigations conducted by his office between federal
fiscal years 2005-06 and 2006-07 "clearly follows a national
trend of (increased) financial abuse and fraud."

The elderly are especially vulnerable to financial exploitation,
he says, because their "helpers" may exercise significant influence
over them; have access to their homes and assets, and know they receive Social
Security or other checks at certain times of the month.

In addition, he says, "Some older people are unsophisticated
about financial matters. And advances in technology have made managing finances
more complicated."

Shoen agrees. "We think our parents can take care of themselves," she
says. "But I check my bank account on line at least every other day, and
a lot of elderly people don’t know how to do that, or even that they
can. Banks are definitely the first line of defense."

In fact, Bahnson says an elderly person’s lack of access
to his banking information may be a tip-off that he’s being exploited
financially.

"I generally tell the community to keep an eye out for an
older neighbor: i.e., any change in behavior; becoming more isolated; one family
member who’s always there, isolating them, pretty soon even speaking
for the elder, telling him not to talk," says Bahnson. "It’s
often a caregiver. The elder may say, ‘My son doesn’t let me see
my checkbook. I haven’t seen my bank statements in a long
time.’"

Shoen says that in her experience, the defendants in elder financial-abuse
cases "are a mix of family members and caregivers."

"It’s hard to say whether someone could have stepped
in and stopped it," she observes. "A lot of these victims had loving,
caring families; it’s not like they weren’t paying attention."

Bahnson says the PPB advises investigating officers to look for
signs that an elderly person may have been unduly influenced by a relative,
caregiver or other person with regard to his finances.

"‘Look at behavior and demeanor; i.e., the caregiver
won’t let the elder speak or speaks for the elder,’" Bahnson
says she tells officers. "‘Listen to what the elder says and write
a report!’ Yes, the caregiver may have a power of attorney, but the elder’s
money may be going to the caregiver’s mortgage, her food, her Botox.
We’re trying to dispel the myth that these cases are necessarily civil."

The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit’s Sternfield, whose unit
has limited jurisdiction over fiduciary abuse, says she doesn’t hear
about police telling complainants "this is a civil matter" as much
as she did when she joined the unit in 1995.

However, Sternfield says she does see officers still failing
to take advantage of elder-friendly statutes.

"For example, theft of a narcotic drug from an elderly patient
may be written up as a misdemeanor theft when it could have been Criminal Mistreatment
in the First Degree," says Sternfield, referring to ORS 163.205. Among
other things, that statute makes it a felony for a caregiver to take an elderly
person’s money or property, regardless of the dollar value involved.

Another thing Sternfield says she sees are requests from district
attorneys and local law enforcement for help with the forensic-accounting aspects
of elder financial-abuse cases.

"We still do a lot of training through the Oregon District
Attorneys Association," says Sternfield, whose unit includes four investigators,
three trial attorneys and two auditors. "A lot of (local) DAs are very
capable; they just need forensic accounting (assistance)."

Gerald Rainey, a former credit-union financial officer who spoke
on forensic accounting at March’s statewide "Teamwork for Tough
Times" conference, acknowledges that it "can be overwhelming for
someone with little understanding of finances or balance sheets."

But in fact, says Rainey, "Forensic accounting is nothing
more than a CPA or bookkeeper working from an evidentiary perspective."

"It’s no different except they’re not looking
for accuracy; they’re looking for evidence," says Rainey, who now
owns a Springfield business that manages guardianships, conservatorships and
trusts. "They’re looking for connections (between suspicious transactions)
and aberrations."

Rainey advises anyone seeking to untangle what he calls "financial
spaghetti" to enlist free assistance from employees of credit unions and
banks and students at colleges with accounting or similar programs.

"Look at one account at a time," he says. "It
just creates these rabbit trails (leading to other accounts)."

Physical Abuse Relatively Rare
Annie Shoen will remember Linda Ober — the Portland nursing-facility
resident who was dropped by aides — for at least two reasons.

One, it was Shoen’s first trial after she began prosecuting
elder-abuse cases for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office
in August.

Two, the victim died.

"I don’t see that a lot," says Shoen, "partly
because of our office’s structure, where homicides are tried by another
unit. A more-typical case of physical abuse is usually an Assault in the Fourth
Degree (involving a negligently caused, relatively-minor injury) in which the
defendant is a caregiver or family member. I’ve had one Assault in the
First Degree (involving an intentional, serious injury) and two attempted murders
that involved family members as defendants."

In fact, not only are incidents like Linda Ober’s death
relatively rare, but — unlike financial exploitation — actual physical
abuse of persons aged 65 or older and physically disabled adults is relatively
uncommon.

Of the 12,000-plus completed investigations and assessments done
by Adult Protective Services statewide in 2006 and 2007, "physical abuse" constituted
less than 10 percent.

What is far more common is neglect and self-neglect leading to
physical harm, both of which are encompassed by Oregon’s elder-abuse
reporting statute. Together, they constituted almost one-half of the complaints
investigated by adult protective services statewide in 2007.

"Self-neglect is a national issue for people who live independently," says
Multnomah County APS’ Bader, whose unit’s neglect and self-neglect
statistics for federal fiscal year 2006-07 were almost identical to those for
the state as a whole.

"Self-neglecting clients demonstrate symptoms similar to
those who suffer from abuse," Bader says. "Multidisciplinary teams
and coordination with health care and legal systems become crucial as there
is a delicate balance between someone’s ability to be self-determining
and the community’s need to keep people safe."

Bleaker Times Ahead
Regardless of whether an elderly and/or physically disabled person suffers
from his own or someone else’s conduct, the potential for more abuse
and neglect cases in the future is grim.

In 2006 and 2007, complaints involving a non-licensed care setting,
such as an elderly and/or physically disabled person’s own home, made
up almost 70 percent of the total complaints investigated by adult protective
services statewide.

Of these, almost 100 percent involved victims who were receiving
no formal care services or who had privately paid services funded by themselves
or their families. Almost 40 percent involved victims who were financially
or physically abused or neglected by their own family members, while another
one-third allegedly were abused by relative or non-relative caregivers.

Which brings us back to the AARP’s Gerry Cohen, and his "perfect
storm" of demographics and the economy, in which families under greater
economic stress struggle to provide care for their elder members or to do so
themselves, while less-than-desirable caregivers agree to work for less money
and more clients.

"We have not only more elders but we have more projected,
more facilities than in the past and DHS suffered budget cuts in the 03-05
biennium…which we really never recovered from," Mary Gear, administrator
for the state Department of Human Services’ Office of Licensing and
QualityofCare,told The West Linn Tidings last
June. (Spokesmen for DHS declined to comment on the department’s budget
prospects for the ’09-’10 biennium.)

Bader’s Multnomah County APS office, which receives both
state and county money, may be in no better shape than the state; according
to a February article in The Oregonian, unionized county workers were
preparing to deal with the fact that "In the coming budget, Multnomah
County government could lose a greater percentage of its work force than in
the past eight years combined."

"We need to avoid being penny-wise, but pound-foolish as
we address the cuts that are being considered," says Cohen. "They
will have far-reaching effects on our law-enforcement system and our families."

And that brings us back to the reality that Oregon’s lawyers — while
not mandatory reporters — have, and will continue to have, an enormous
role in keeping our most-vulnerable fellow citizens safe.